New Grants for Museum Curators Provide Critical Support for Scholarly Research

Getty Grant Program Awards over $100,000 in Fellowships to 10 Curators in U.S. and Europe

May 25, 2000

Los Angeles-The Getty Grant Program today announced the first 10 recipients of a new fellowship program that addresses the museum field's critical need for curatorial research support. Curatorial Research Fellowships totaling more than $100,000 will support curators' professional scholarly development by allowing them to take time off from regular museum duties to undertake short-term research or study projects. This year's grantees come from eight American and two European institutions, and the topics they will investigate range from late-medieval gardens to feminist art of the 1970s and '80s.

"We decided to create this new grant category after surveying the museum field and discovering a real need for resources to support scholarly research by curators," said Joan Weinstein, senior program officer for the Getty Grant Program, who oversees the Curatorial Research Fellowship program. "Museum budgets are often severely strained, and the Getty's fellowships offer a welcome new source of funding for serious scholarship."

Research carried out by Fellows may be in preparation for institutional or independent projects. For example, William Robinson, associate curator of paintings at the Cleveland Museum of Art, will conduct research for an exhibition on Spanish modernism, while Sandra Phillips, senior curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, will be able to travel to Rome to study the photography collection of the Vatican Library.

In addition to the range of their subject matter, the Fellows themselves represent a wide variety of organizations, from regional museums and university art galleries to major international institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Grantees are also at different stages in their careers, from assistant to senior curators.

"The professional, geographic, and thematic mix is what makes this first group of Fellows so exciting," said David Rodes, director of the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at the UCLA Armand Hammer Museum, who served on the Curatorial Research Advisory Committee. "We all know that many demands are placed on museum professionals today, but allowing curators concentrated periods of time to pursue research will ultimately strengthen their work and that of their institutions. I think it's wonderful that the Getty is encouraging this."

Full-time curators working in museums with art collections are eligible to apply for Curatorial Research Fellowships, which are awarded by the Getty Grant Program through an open competition. Fellowships provide a stipend of $3,500 per month for up to three months, as well as up to $3,000 for travel and research materials. Fellows pursue their research wherever necessary to complete their projects. The next application deadline for Curatorial Research Fellowships is November 1, 2000. Detailed application information for this and other Getty grants is available online at www.getty.edu/grants.

Getty Grant Program
2000-2001 Curatorial Research Fellowships

Fellows

Projects

Elisabeth Antoine
Curator
Musée National du Moyen Age, Paris

For the catalogue of the exhibition "On Earth as in Heaven: Gardens of the Late Middle Ages."

For a monograph on the Dutch painter and draughtsman Roelandt Saverij (1576-1639).

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About the Getty:

The J. Paul Getty Trust is an international cultural and philanthropic institution devoted to the visual arts that features the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Foundation, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Getty Research Institute. The J. Paul Getty Trust and Getty programs serve a varied audience from two locations: the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Getty Villa in Malibu.

The Getty Foundation fulfills the philanthropic mission of the Getty Trust by supporting individuals and institutions committed to advancing the understanding and preservation of the visual arts locally and throughout the world. Through strategic grants and programs, the Foundation strengthens art history as a global discipline, promotes the interdisciplinary practice of conservation, increases access to museum and archival collections, and develops current and future leaders in the visual arts. The Foundation carries out its work in collaboration with the Getty Museum, Research Institute, and Conservation Institute to ensure the Getty programs achieve maximum impact. Additional information is available at www.getty.edu/foundation. To learn more, subscribe to the Foundation's e-newsletter by visiting http://www.getty.edu/subscribe/foundation_news/.